Chapter Twenty-Two
Kara had already thrown up three times. Her legs felt like spaghetti.
Her chest and stomach ached, and her head throbbed.
In the shape she was in, escaping was out of the question.
Roland had brought her to the back room, where he’d disappeared to earlier.
He’d set up a place for her to go to the bathroom, over a grate that dropped into a cesspool below.
He’d followed the line, he’d told her, and it ran directly into the river through an enormous metal pipe.
Kara squatted over the grate now, her modesty long gone.
Her innards twisted and pulled. She thought her colon might drop right out of her rectum.
Her vision faltered to blurry, then back to clear.
She held onto the wall as she pulled up her pants, moaning in pain.
“Why are you doing this?” she cried out. Roland did not answer. Why wasn’t he answering her? What kind of sick game was he playing?
“Roland?” she said louder. “Why are you doing this to me?” She slogged along the stone wall, making her way into the chamber where he’d first kept her. She felt the change from stone to concrete. Her eyes scanned the room.
“Roland?” she said. Had he gone? A surge of adrenaline kicked in. She followed the wall to the entrance of the room. Was it a trick, she wondered? “Roland?” she said again. There was no answer. Her heart raced. Her fingers gripped the edge of the concrete where it turned the corner into the hall.
“Ro…Roland?” She looked into the hallway, then back into the dimly lit room.
The hallway was dark. She couldn’t see ten feet in front of her.
She inched her hands along the concrete wall and turned into the hallway.
She kept one hand out in front of her, palm flat, and left the other dragging against the wall.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
She breathed through her nose, trying not to make a sound.
Kara expected Roland to jump out at any second and grab her, or kill her.
She didn’t know what he’d do to her, but she was sure it would be bad.
She didn’t care. She clenched her jaw tight and walked forward.
A long, low hum broke through the silence.
She stopped, every sense on alert. The hum stopped.
She stood on trembling legs, unsure of what to do next.
Move forward or go back? She looked behind her.
No, she couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t go back.
He’d have to drag her dead body back. She had to get out.
She’d been so selfish toward her mother.
Was this her due? She saw it so clearly now.
She was such a bitch, so wrapped up in her own mess with Daryl that she’d snapped at her, belittled her.
She’d even overlooked her. Her father had left her mother, and there was no way she’d do the same.
She used that thought to pull her through the dark maze of hallways.
Her palm hit another wall. She gasped, pulling her hand back and holding her breath.
She reached her hand out again, feeling the corner of the wall.
Kara breathed in fast, her breath trembling, her heart pounding.
She peered around the wall—darkness. How long could the hallways go on?
Where had he gone? Maybe he’d left, or died.
Maybe whatever they drank had already killed him. The thought gave her hope.
She wound her way through two more narrow passageways, finally coming into a long, narrow room filled with old motors, barrels, and generators.
The graveyard. Kara knew just where she was.
As a new employee she’d been given a tour of the facilities.
The graveyard was the inside joke among the staff—the part of the tour whose name would send chills down the backs of new employees.
She remembered the feeling. She’d known it was a test—blond girl runs from plant too scared to accept job—but she’d showed them.
She didn’t even flinch while walking through the cobwebs at the entrance.
There were no cobwebs now. She moved achingly across the room to the opposite side.
Her pulse throbbed in her neck. She looked beyond the thick, concrete doorframe, down the hall from side to side, then back into the room.
She knew the way out. She sobbed, feeling a wide smile break out, despite the bile rising in her throat.
Kara turned into the corner of the room, retched unsuccessfully, then crouched as she caught her breath and waited for the burning pain in her side to subside.
The grating chain of the elevator shaft sent fear like fire through her veins.
She bolted to the right, down the hall and into a small maintenance room, the door closing with a thunk behind her.
Kara had only been in the maintenance room once before, when she had been looking for the elevator maintenance man, Harvey, who no longer worked at the plant.
She bumped into a rolling chair and snagged the telephone receiver from the wall, covering her nose with her other hand.
The stench of something rotten assaulted her.
She gagged, punching the red Service button over and over.
“Come on, come on!” she begged.
The line was dead. She cried out, slamming the receiver down once, twice, then finally gave up.
She leaned her forehead on her arm and sobbed.
She couldn’t take it anymore. She was too tired.
Her body rebelled against her every movement.
What had he done to her? She breathed in fast, heavy fits and spurts. Damn it. She had to get out of there.
A scampering sound sent her flying backward with a scream. She fell over the chair and landed on the floor, where she sat eye to eye, with the decomposing body of Kara’s ex-coworker, Paul Warren, a thick metal bar sticking out of his chest.